Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Photo woes...

Oh Internet, I just have to get something off my chest. It's no secret that I've been desperately trying to book more jobs lately. Mainly weddings, since I do live in the wedding capitol of the world and it is the most efficient use of my shooting time. Well, I've never before had to try and land wedding gigs. They've always just fallen into my lap and I was as busy as I wanted to be. But lately, now that I actually need to have an income, there are no weddings for me. And I know why. It's not just because I'm a mediocre photographer. It's because everyone and their uncle who has ever bought a decent SLR digital camera at Costco is now a professional photographer. Five years ago there was a handful of great wedding photographers in this area. I knew or had heard of most of them. We were shooting film, we HAD to know what we were doing! We had to get it right in camera...film was a serious investment. Now, there are HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of wedding photographers around here. Some of them are just plain awful. And some of them are incredible. Some of the incredible ones never even got a degree in photography like yours truly, and that really depresses me. I've been blog-stalking a lot of them lately and it just makes me want to put down my camera forever. It's just so depressing. John Telford was right: Inexpensive, quality digital cameras are the death of serious photography.

7 comments:

Vanessa Contessa said...

Dude,
I feel your pain. Check my insanely long email to you...

Kaerlig said...

I'm not having a wedding. Sorry. But I would like some family pictures and you can charge me for once.

Kendra Leigh said...

I'd book you!!!

Jessica said...

Yeah, it does seem like there has been a mold-like explosion of photographers in Utah.

I hope you get some gigs soon!

michellecluff said...

If I were getting married again, I would definitely book you for sure. You're so talented, and perhaps with my dad being ever so busy with his day job, I may just have you do our family photos...

Commander Power said...

You can give a monkey a camera but they are still a monkey. They now just have a camera to take pictures with. Some may turn out well or even amazing, but who really wants that many pictures of a banana. Seriously....

Kgordee said...

Em, you are Amazing, I love our wedding pictures. The color, the style and the fact that we look so rad, sooooooooo rad, is all thanks to you. People who think they can pick up a fancy pants camera and shoot like a pro are in serious denial. It sucks that they are ruining it for those who have talent.